Today's college graduates will have to learn much throughout life, both in professional and personal areas. At one time it was reasonable to expect that one or two vocational fields would suffice for a lifetime. Today's students will see numerous changes in vocational fields but also the likelihood of employment in fields that currently do not exist. Further, the need to learn throughout life is no less great in the various non-professional areas of life. Contemporary students should expect to face accelerating change and complexity and fresh challenges after college. Coping with the future will require constant learning. No amount of information or facts acquired at college will suffice. Hence contemporary students need to learn how to learn. Learning how to learn implies the development of skills and abilities. Therefore, the General Education Program emphasizes the development of skills and abilities.
But this does not imply that knowledge or information may be neglected. Coping with the present and future requires greater knowledge than heretofore. The challenges of dramatic change will require drawing on a deep and broad understanding of history and our social and political institutions. Science and technology will increasingly affect, and require responses from, all citizens and can no longer be relegated to a few specialists. In addition, intercultural understanding, once an accessory is now essential, as the world has become fundamentally interactive and interdependent.